Thursday, September 06, 2012

Ma-in-law's Robibarer Mangshor Jhol -- on more Mutton Curry

This post is not about clouds.

Robibarer Pathar Mangshor Jhol - Bengali Mutton Curry

It is about Manghsor Jhol -- Mutton Curry. The Sunday one. The Bengali home staple that has reached a mythical proportion simply by virtue of us bragging about it. And Robibarer Manghsor Jhol does give us bragging rights, the whole gamut of it.

But I have written paeans about it in my earlier posts so today I will talk about clouds instead.

Not that I know much about them. The only times I actually watch clouds is when I am stuck in traffic or more specifically when I am stuck in traffic with two kids in the back seat. Also when there is no traffic but a never ending road and two kids in the back seat, I often suggest that they watch clouds. Somehow it makes me feel like a very free spirited kind of Mother, the one who makes blueberry jam and then spreads it thick on coarse rye bread handing them over to her children who play in the meadows by brambles and thistles.

Sadly I am not that kind. I have never made blueberry jam and my kids refuse rye bread. And we will not even discuss brambles. But I digress.

So anyway this random "cloud watching" thing inspired a desire in Little Sis to spend an entire afternoon watching clouds and nothing but clouds. And she wanted it to be done in a proper setting. Not from cars. Lying down on a sleeping bag(no grass mind you) set out in the deck on some balmy summer afternoon, LS wanted to watch them clouds.

Amazingly two summer months almost passed us by and we never got a chance to do that! So when summer was drawing to a close, I grabbed a late afternoon with a good measure of clouds and we watched. No proper setting, no sleeping bag, not even grass. While BigSis was attending one of her classes we sat on the ledge by the sidewalk outside her class and watched.

"Wow. Doesn't that one look like a teddy bear?", I said trying to be at my excited best.

"No. It looks like a monster", said LS.

"Now that one is like a cute little doggy", I said all cloying and sweet.

LS who was now more interested in the rocks on the sidewalk than any cloud, glanced and said "Nope. It looks like a big dragon".

"Come on. This one surely is like a magic fairy's hair", I blurted out trying to salvage a sweet cloud watch moment.

And with that we closed our "cloud watch' chapter and concentrated on rock tricks,

*********

Okay and before I go onto the mutton curry, I have to tell you this. Soon after turning four, LS seems to have discovered the words "girlish" and "boyish". I have no clue where she got them from but she has been scattering her conversations with those words.

Today hearing her Dad's voice over the phone, she declared "Baba sounded very girl-ish on the phone. Maybe he drank too much pink lemonade"

*********

Back to the mutton curry now which is my Ma-in-law's recipe this time. Her Sunday Mutton curry recipe is different from my Mother's Sunday mutton curry recipe and yet they largely taste the same with finer points to be debated on. The mother-in-law's recipe involves marinating the mutton with mustard oil, all the spices, tomato, onion, garlic and ginger that makes the curry. If you can manage to do this single step of detailed marination, the night before, the actual cooking happens very fast the next day.

Now on days when you are rushing and a simple mutton curry will do you can side-step the "kashano" or "bhuno" part of this recipe and directly make the jhol in the Pressure cooker. That jhol is a bit runny and akin to something that the famous author Syed Mujtaba Ali would refer to as "Bangali'r Mangshor Maacher Jhol" which means a Mutton Curry which is as runny as plain as an everyday fish curry.

If you spend 30 mins of your time in "kashano",then the same mutton curry becomes richer and more regal looking. Take your pick and have a lovely Sunday lunch of Mutton curry and rice. Oh yes, do cook the rice in the same pressure cooker with remnants of the mutton gravy to flavor it and little ghee. My daughters love that rice as much as the curry.

Ma-in-Law's Sunday Mutton Curry

Wash and clean 2lb of goat meat.

Make a paste of following2 cups of chopped red onion6 fat clove of garlic(12 regular)2" of ginger peeled and chopped

Roughly pound 5-6 hot Indin green chili.

Chop 1 medium sized tomato. If the tomatoes are the tough. commercial kind just puree them or get a better tomato.

Once the oil is flavored add the marinated mutton and the potatoes. Add the pounded green chilies.

Mix everything well together and let it cook for some time. Stir intermittently so that the meat does not stick to the bottom of the cooker. The meat will also release some water. Wait for the water to almost dry up and for the meat to change color.

For a richer version of this curry, the meat is kasha-oed for about 25-20 minutes till you see the oil surfacing. But in my Ma-in-law's everyday version, we do not wait for the oil to surface. Once the meat has changed color and no longer looks raw, we give a good stir, and add enough water so that the meat pieces are submerged. Then I adjust for salt and spices and close the Pressure Cooker lid.

Once the Cooker starts going "Phissssssshhh", I wait for about 8 minutes or so and then switch off. I have a Futura cooker and it does not whistle so I am not sure of the number of whistles.

Make a wet paste of2 green cardamom2 clovesmall stick of cinnamon
in a mortar-pestle
Once the pressure has been released, open lid and add this fresh garam masala paste(kaaNcha garam mashla bata) along with little ghee. Close the lid again and open only at time of serving. Thanks UshnishDa for this tip.

thank u , i do something little different ...learnt from my granma of course i.e. instead of adding kaancha garam masala and ghee i drop couple of methi seeds now one should not sprinkle loads but as per the quantity b'coz it will taste bitter. And believe it it gives altogether a very different and lovely aroma with methi seeds .:)

Rabibarer mangsher jhol obsession is slowly gripping my household as well. My hubby grew on this religiously.....while in my parent's household red meat was struck out much before the health food fad, for reasons I can not remember today. In fact it was and still is mainly a fish only household. I can cook a thousand odd dishes better than my Ma in law but, never ever do I dare to compete on the maangsher jhol bit. My hubby is exceptionally sensitive on the issue. The jhol consistency, the texture, the alu pieces, its degree of cooking etc have reached a state of obsession. Thus came my Dronacharya for cooking,Sanjeev Kapoor and like Eklavya I cracked it, well almost letz say with his take on this Bong version of Mangsher jhol.....Thanks for putting up this post. Will try and definitely enjoy the variation. Loved the cloud watching bit. I enjoy doing that from my balcony as well....but the cracker was ' having more pink lemonade'...Pls give the princess a tight hug on my behalf for this masterpiece

Indo, Bong Mom, yeah! I have just started dealing with IT stuff at work and am coming across much jargon. I think I was googling cloud computing for dummies before I saw your post. I think I understood it better before I looked it up.

Something about storing your services on the Net rather than on your own server to cut costs?

Dear SandeepaVery nice recipe ..it has been ages I have cooked with a marination of onion, ginger garlic paste . I am taking the note of using garam masla in tempering and also the raw one at the end ..i can get the combined fragrance right now ! Going to try it as soon as I am back from Santoniketan. Wao..Thanks for mentioning my name , I feel proud ..ha ha Of course the preamble on cloud, photos are very nice ! bhalo thekoUshnishda

Once a friend asked, "when you say BENGALI MANGSHER JHOL, is it the mangsho who is bengali or the jhol?";-)My family loves the pressure cooker jhol....ek thala bhaat vanish hoye jaye! and potatoes are a MUST in this curry....mangsho na thakleo cholbe kintu mangsher alu thakte hobe!

big hugs to LS.. baba turned girlish drinking pink lemonade. ROFL.We watch clouds too.. P has kind of outgrown, but T does that all the time from the car and whereever we go. love the idea of sleeping bag:) I will have to do that once when it cools down here in our back yard.

ebar amar khide khide lagchey.never did that last part. next mangshor jhol e eta add korbo. I LOVE the smell of that marinated mansho with shob kichu and the mustard oil. Ma je boro steel er dekchi te marinade korto sheta amar kachey (and I use it for the same purpose now); sheta dekhei I can still smell that!!!

Ummm...I can feel the aroma of the mangshor jhol. I'll try the gota garom moshla phoron as well as the methi seed thing as Basabdutta mentioned. never tried adding ghee in the mutton curry, will try that too if I can convince myself.

The mangsho-bhaat er thala looks awesome. I had mangsho (stew) for lunch today, but hungry again just looking at your pictures. When my Mother asked our help in Patna to do the gorom moshla on sheel nora, she would instruct her, chandan bata moton korish. And she would add to the mangshor jhol to finish it off. :-)

My daughter's sunday favourite, as was mine, and D's, and most Bongs' worth their salt. But it's the rice, at the end, that made me want to go and take out my pressure cooker. Of course, I'll have to make the manghsho first for it to flavour the rice :)

Hi,Based on your delicious Ma-in-Law's Sunday Mutton Curry photos, we'd like to invite you to submit your food photos on a food photography site called http://www.foodporn.net so our readers can enjoy your creations.It is absolutely free and fun to make others hungry!Thanks :)

I just discovered your blog (through a different recipe),and I Love it already! For the photographs, the anecdotes, cloud-watching, and the food of course. (And because I tend to like people who use the word "dang!".)

Just wanted to say thanks! I am following your cooking instructions for almost a month now. My wife is expecting (due date next month...she is not a bong)... I have cooked so many stuff for her blindly based on what u mentioned and every time it was awsome...everytime I see my wife happy I feel privileged. .. (she is unfortunately suffering from sugar n pupp). I just wanted to say..."Thanks"...you have significant contributions towards our happiness. ....

Just wanted to say thanks! I am following your cooking instructions for almost a month now. My wife is expecting (due date next month...she is not a bong)... I have cooked so many stuff for her blindly based on what u mentioned and every time it was awsome...everytime I see my wife happy I feel privileged. .. (she is unfortunately suffering from sugar n pupp). I just wanted to say..."Thanks"...you have significant contributions towards our happiness. ....

Sorry to reactivate your old post. But mangshor jhol is totally epic. I mean Sunday is meaningless without mangshor jhol. And hey that last pic is so damn true for me. Though, I cannot take it in anymore but I keep staring at my empty plate; holy bugger!! cannt believe this is over ..:)

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Predominantly a Bong, who loves being a Mom and loves to cook among other things for the li'l one and the big ones.She loves to write too and you will find her food spiced up with stories. Mainly a collection of Bengali Recipes with other kinds thrown in, in good measure. A Snapshot of Bengali Cuisine